Thanks to record-breaking rainfall last month – the Mississippi River is overflowing, pouring enormous floodwaters across – Louisiana – Mississippi – Missouri – and Tennessee. Several billions of dollars of damage has been reported. The Army Corps of Engineers is now relieving pressure on New Orleans levees by flooding thousands of acres in Louisiana, in a desperate bid to save the city from drowning in a disaster worse than Katrina. Record breaking twisters a few weeks ago – record breaking floods now – yet Republicans are pressing ahead denying climate change.

In fact – of the 43 Members of Congress representing the afflicted states – 38 have voted to block the EPA from enforcing greenhouse gas regulation. How many more homes destroyed – and people killed – will it take for Republicans to accept we are living in dangerous times with an increasingly volatile climate as a result of our destructive energy policy? Don’t the millionaire oil executives realize they can’t escape climate change either?

Oh, wait - that's right - they can afford million-dollar waterproof bunkers, one of the fastest-growing industries in the United States specifically designed for rich people to avoid everything from floods to wildfires.

Comments

Anne is involved in a new project promoting the empowerment of women. She is part of a traveling stage presentation called "We Did It For You -- Women's Journey Through History"

I'm always amazed at how most young women take our rights for granted have no appreciation of the struggles our foremothers went through. In a time when people in power are trying to reverse our progress and re-write history, what's better than show that entertains and teaches real history?

The women involved in this project want to bring their presentation to Washington D.C. If you know anyone who can help them achieve this goal please contact Anne or Thea Iberall, playwrite of "We Did It For You." I'm sending their contact information in a separate email to you.

Thom you just briefly mentioned at the end of your show something that I wish you would spend every show on. You said that you believed there would be a crash followed by years of suffering. Sadly, enough people are not hurting enough, for any real progressive change to take place.

Obama supporter Cornell West went ballistic about having supported Obama:

(Cornell) West, who did 65 campaign events for Obama, believed in the potential for change and was encouraged by the populist rhetoric of the Obama campaign. He now nurses, like many others who placed their faith in Obama, the anguish of the deceived, manipulated and betrayed. He bitterly describes Obama as “a black mascot of Wall Street oligarchs and a black puppet of corporate plutocrats. And now he has become head of the American killing machine and is proud of it.”

"....This means civil disobedience, going to jail, supporting progressive forums of social unrest if they in fact awaken the conscience, whatever conscience is left, of the nation. And that’s where I find myself now."

“I was thinking maybe he has at least some progressive populist instincts that could become more manifest after the cautious policies of being a senator and working with [Sen. Joe] Lieberman as his mentor,” he says. “But it became very clear when I looked at the neoliberal economic team. The first announcement of Summers and Geithner I went ballistic. I said, ‘Oh, my God, I have really been misled at a very deep level.’ And the same is true for Dennis Ross and the other neo-imperial elites. I said, ‘I have been thoroughly misled, all this populist language is just a facade. I was under the impression that he might bring in the voices of brother Joseph Stiglitz and brother Paul Krugman. I figured, OK, given the structure of constraints of the capitalist democratic procedure that’s probably the best he could do. But at least he would have some voices concerned about working people, dealing with issues of jobs and downsizing and banks, some semblance of democratic accountability for Wall Street oligarchs and corporate plutocrats who are just running amuck. I was completely wrong.”

West says the betrayal occurred on two levels: Go to the Truthdig web site to read more...

So why are some of you people still supporting the turn-coat, sell-out and traitor to his prelection convictions and to the people who voted for him? Obama is your friend ever as much as are the Koch-roaches who want to turn everyone else into lowly serfs and peon slaves.

BILLIONAIRES targeted Socialist who was, oh-so coincidentally, just about to announce his candidacy which was hugely favored to wallop Sarkozy.. is what it clearly looks like. So wtf is with TH poo-pooing the obvious as "The Conspiracy Theory".. what a blow to us truth-pursuing leftists out here! I guess we stilli have www.MikeMalloy.com.. but it's way fewer stations, alas..

Not finding, & not sure how quickly he would read his email address, so here's an OPEN LETTER to Thom. If someone has time to get this in front of him real-time during today's show, please help.. I'm very preoccupied trying to make ends meet..

Thom, I'm growing quite tired of your now-consistent knee-jerk dismissals of anything anyone finds some way to call a "conspiracy theory." Super-effective ops such as the Strauss-Kahn set-up have this very much in mind going in.. they surely concluded with great certainty beforehand that even if this guy eventually clears his name fully, their intended effect has gone in place.

It's not just Sarkozy that would have motive. What is it with your pattern of phrasing it "okay.. so this is THE conspiracy theory.." there are scads of possibilities, and the evidence is quite flimsy, so many of them should be considered:

Just quit it with the dismissiveness toward anything that can be smeared with the emptyhead phrase "conspiracy theory". Take a sabbatical and listen to a couple years' worth of KPFA's "Guns and Butter".. packed with facts, I DEFY you to prove them wrong.http://archive.wbai.org/show1.php?showid=gunsbutter (you can find older installments on kpfa.org/archive )

ps. Also read Tom Heneghan's blog, which is the only place presently pointing out that Strauss-Kahn has provided the evidence for the criminal prosecution recommended by the Senate Banking Committee against Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase:http://www.myspace.com/tom_heneghan_intel/blog/542954674

Maybe Mother Nature will come up with bunker-buster storms to get back at those who were most responsible for maximizing their short term gains by maximizing world pollution....like Mega tornadoes that drill down and extract the Koch-roaches from their lairs. Or maybe massive storms that emulate what happened in Japan...but only thousands of times worse..(we nearly had a storm related nuke catastrophe in the South-eastern US recently).

The half-life of radioactive plutonium is hundreds of thousands of years....even the wealthy elite Koch-roaches would not be able to last long. When their "shelters" became prisons they would be sorry they thought that amassing wealth by any means was better than being beneficent to their fellow citizens. Of course, unfortunately, under such cataclysms, all life on earth would cease to exist.

We'll all end up paying dearly for what a few selfish people are doing. The wealthy elite bunker survivalists still have the "duck and cover" mentality that was drilled in to us all by Walt Disney's "Duck and Cover" propaganda films of the 50s and 60s. Fact is if anything so disastrous as a nuclear holocaust (by war or by accidents), or world-wide destruction by massive weather changes, or even a complete economic breakdown such that people are dying off from starvation and disease then life would not be worth living anyway. When that happens, even the wealthy ruling elite would no longer find that their much cherished status is worth anything. There would be no one to serve them. And the viral diseases that would develop would not be stopped for long by a bunker.

But then again..hoping that something terrible would happen to make the wealthy pay for their crimes is just about as ridiculous as believing in "rich men going to heaven when they can pass through the eye of a needle"...and that the poor will get their rewards after they get to heaven. The wealthy love that kind of thinking because it lets them get away with everything.

Not only is the rain affecting the Mississippi watershed. Here in Vermont, it has just been reported today that we have exceeded the alltime record spring rainfall. And that is before the end of May. Lake Champlain is at an alltime record high level and flooding many homes and camps on its shore.

Could it be that all of this unusual amount of rain is due to the melting of the ice caps? Increasing world temperature not only melts the ice caps but increases the moisture in our atmosphere. Is this just the beginning of worse things yet to come? I know that there are cyclic occurrences of really bad flooding...like 100 year floods...and maybe that is what is happening. But the melting of the ice caps will not only make beach front property of inland real estate but will continue to flood the main arteries such as the Mississippi because of the added moisture in the air. Also the ice caps have helped reflect a lot of the suns energy back up into space which will lose that effect causing further global warming. I think it is non-stoppable and a runaway situation...nothing now will stop it..and we are all doomed. So Carpe Diem everyone. We're all gonna die! But let's have some fun and get out your cans of Raid and go after the Koch-roaches before they can scuttle away to their bunker nests.

"So why are some of you people still supporting the turn-coat, sell-out and traitor to his prelection convictions and to the people who voted for him?"

Because he isn't - it is all in your imagination! It must be, as you NEVER provide any facts to support your contention. It is all visceral, emotional and incipient Maybe unconscious rascist rhetoric!

I'm beginning to believe that you have an agenda on Obama. Maybe you are a planted lobbyist from the Right?

Must be because no intelligent American would have voted for Obama and then turn around and use such ultra-right mumbo-jumbo! Prove us all wrong! If Obama is to the Right of the Right I would Like Some FACTS! So would a lot other readers of this blog! I've had enough of this hate speech! Put up or go peddle your nonsense on right-wing blogs who would welcome your sordid nonsense!

This is a simple one - maybe he could not keep his primeval urges at bay and he DID attack the Maid! This is a French Cliché!

And then there is the DNA. But then, when it confirms the obvious, that he did attack the Maid, the Conspiracy Theory (CT) will then take a turn and we will then be subjected to and hear that the CT has to be extended to the NYP and the Lab scientists!

You can never argue a CT and Negative Evidence - a CT can NEVER be disproven as it is not fact and therefore un-falsifiable!

That is why CTs are so Popular – it is the lazy persons way to avoid all the work required to raise the facts and then prove or disprove them. It is also the best way to immune ones beliefs against reality – the CT always wins out as it can never be disproven.

I can see it now, in a frightful moment of kharmatic justice, Cheney, the Koch brothers and many of their oil executive buddies scurry to a bunker in their posh, gated community. Flood waters due to extreme out of control climate change are rising fast. Unfortunately, as the electronic hatch closes behind them, all back up power systems go down, and the hatch becomes inoperative.

Entombed in the bunker together, a terrifying reality quickly becomes clear; Haliburton constructed the bunker using the same flawed cement technique that caused the Gulf oil spill. Water begins seeping in with no escape possible.

However, lacking a sadistic personality disorder, I must end this yarn on a hopeful note. Instead of their fate being a dark, watery grave, just as the water almost fills the bunker, the power comes on, the hatch opens, and they all swim to safety.

With this close brush with death, there miraculously emerges a collective epiphany and all realize the shallow pursuit of money and power is truly meaningless without a balance of humanitarian compassion in their hearts.

As a result, they all get together and form a media network, with shows promoting green energy, universal health care, the science of climate change, affordable education, and all things connected to progressive democracy.

HOLD ON A MINUTE, WHAT AM I SMOKING? Just end it at the dark, watery grave part. “We the people” can handle the progressive democracy part without the help of big oil.

LACK OF DREDGING. My Uncle worked for 30 yrs in the Army Corps of Engineers. He has compained for years about the Federal Govt. cutting back on $$ for dredging. Yes Thom it is partially the climate but mostly LACK OF YEARLY DREDGING OF OUR RIVERS BIG AND SMALL.... You figure it out..

LACK OF DREDGING. My Uncle worked for 30 yrs in the Army Corps of Engineers. He has compained for years about the Federal Govt. cutting back on $$ for dredging. Yes Thom it is partially the climate but mostly LACK OF YEARLY DREDGING OF OUR RIVERS BIG AND SMALL.... You figure it out.."

If that were the case, the rivers would flood every year and every year it would get worst. This year it was a LOTS and LOTS of rain that has caused the flooding! Don't know about you, but 15-20 inches of rain over a few days is NOT normal rainfall!!

Based on your premise then, if the rivers are not dredged this year, then next year the Flood will be worst then this year.

The Marianas Trench- nestled on the botttom in diatomaceous ooze- would provide an excellent storage facility for those with waterpoof bunkers, with our prayers that they will soon be subducted beneath the Pacific Plate.

I am ashamed for my country, as every citizen of conscience should be.

The above sentence is from the above article.

Here is another comment from Thom's show that discusses creationism and evolutionism. John Paul II, as pope, said that evolution has a place in education. The problem with education is that our schools do not have educational leaders. School administrators are functioning more like politicians.

The grope-anator admits to a secret love child with a household staffer. I love these Anti-Life Party politicians for their family values spewing as b.s.

dnarnadem:
"....it is all in your imagination! It must be, as you NEVER provide any facts to support your contention. It is all visceral, emotional and incipient Maybe unconscious rascist rhetoric!"
Sorry, but I'm not the one with an errant imagination. You imagine that Obama, as President, is in the best interest of the country, or at least, in your best interest. Did you not read comment #10? The one that said that even Cornell West (an obvious black man--I say this in rebuttal against your hint that I may be a racist...which is absolutely not true), who had fiercely supported and campaigned for Obama, now sees the light and the truth about Obama. Obviously, those of you who have not supported Obama to the extent that Cornell has, and who still believe in Obama, are greatly compromised in their ability to see reality. It is incorrigible useful-idiots that will continue to be fooled by slick tongued politicians that say one thing then repeatedly do the other.

Have you ever read Michael Hudson (at www.Michael-Hudson.com), or Max Keiser, or many other people who know a lot about economics that indicate, to me anyway, that Obama has either been a complete dupe, or an opportunist, or for whatever else reason, has not lived up to most of what he preached to the people when he wanted their votes. No, Obama is not suitable to be "our" President. He is not one who will fight for the promises he made to the people.
I wouldn't care if our next President was another black, or a brown, or a yellow, or even a Muslim. I'd prefer it if he were an atheist because atheists don't have their heads up their butts believing in stupid make-believe myths.

And again, as I have said before (and I know you still don't believe me) I am progressive...a liberal....and abhor the criminal Republican right-wingers. You see, after all I have written condemning and berating the ruling elite and Republicans it takes a run-away imagination to think that I am some kind of plant, or agent, of the wealthy elite or anyone other than just someone who got suckered in (yes, a temporary use-full idiot) to vote for Obama thinking, and believing, that he would be good for the country...good for us, the majority of hard-working or retired citizens instead of continuing to overwhelmingly enrich that tiny 1 or 2% of the population who have greedily hogged it all.

gerald:
Have you ever gone beyond reading the bible in seeking knowledge that might tend to challenge the bible? Or are you intimidated by the idea that it would be Satan challenging you to do so and so therefore you would avoid any, or all, such endeavors?

I remember hearing a woman trying to convince her young son that he had better be good or the "boogie man will get you!" I often wonder if that young son ever grew out of the "boogie man syndrome".

I believe there are a lot of people who still believe in "the boogie man" whatever form he takes...and, of course, to counter the "boogie man" there has to be a "Savior" that people can use to ward off the "boogie man"...at least that's how it is all supposed to work (in their minds)....but "really terrible things quite often happen to 'good' believers" despite the conviction and loyalty the believers had shown toward their mythical beings. It didn't work so well for the ancient polytheists either. They too would have to ignore that fact that "nothing fails like prayer"..being no better than chance (50-50). They too had their non-sensical and illogical quips in trying to assert that they weren't all just a little bit crazy. And the priests, purveyors of lies and myths to control the masses, used their devious means and powers to keep the believers believing them. One tool is to get people to believe that unless they too believe, as everyone else appears to, they would be considered heretical outcasts. So many people just go right along with the dominant paradigm of lies and myths afraid to challenge any.

It looks to me like those who are public personalities often have to walk the tightrope and try not to offend anyone....especially if the public person has his own tightrope of ideas that would not pass the scientific method way of thinking. I can often hear the overtones and the underlying messages that cannot really be hidden. For instance, Acharya S. at www.truthbeknown.com has a wealth of knowledge about the history of myths and the bible. And she asserts that many of these myths are based on ancient astrology and the modern myths (the bible) are based on these ancient astrological myths. I find it fascinating and it is very believable....but I tend to believe that she is not really a full fledged atheist but more of a mysticist herself. It looks to me like mysticism is just another form of religion...not that it is anything new. Mysticism, astrology, palm reading, tea leaves, salt over the shoulder, flying spaghetti monster, religion...they are all variations of the same overactive imagination in "just pretend" belief systems.

As an atheist, I find it quite amusing that after all that these idiot televangelists (and their "flocks") have creamed in their britches over terrible things that happen to those they see as "non-believers" (in their particular religion). We all laugh and sneer at how ridiculous these brain-dead thumpers, with over-active imaginations, are....especially now that the "bible belt" is continually being pelted "by the hand of God". It gives the "believers" a challenge to continue to support their ridiculous positions by using equally ridiculous and worn out old saws like "god works in mysterious ways" and "god is testing us" ....whatever.

You are right PC...misery needs company and we have not had enough home foreclosures to make a difference to the still existing middle class. How many homes have to be for sale or forclosed on in any one block before people realize that the odds are they may be next.

Cornell West from Princeton? - A man with an agenda! He wasn't invited to the white house so he's pissed! Not much of a FACT if you ask me! Only the ranting’s of an Afro-American who feels Jilted by his own President!

"that Obama has either been a complete dupe, or an opportunist, or for whatever else reason.." Factually what does this mean. if anything!

"I wouldn't care if our next President was another black, or a brown, or a yellow, or even a Muslim. I'd prefer it if he were an atheist because atheists don't have their heads up their butts believing in stupid make-believe myths." I STILL SEE NO FACTS! This is all PERSONAL nonsense! How would you know that Atheists don't have their heads up their butts anyway? Like everyone else, they are only human, with human faults. Just by logic alone, I can bet there are a few Atheists with their heads up their butts!

"And again, as I have said before (and I know you still don't believe me) I am progressive...a liberal....and abhor the criminal Republican right-wingers." You could have fooled me! In the vernacular - it ain't no white supremecist good ole boy repug that happens to be Prisident of the United States right now!

And after all the Rhetoric I still see NO FACTS! Your statements are just right-wing ranting when it comes to Obama.

One of the really weird ironies of politics these days is the huge divergence between what the American people actually want and what the radical right-wingers in Washington actually do. You won’t hear this on Fox So-Called News, but right now the American people are as progressive as they ever have been.

"Beneath the success and rise of American enterprise is an untold history that is antithetical to every value Americans hold dear. This is a seminal work, a godsend really, a clear message to every citizen about the need to reform our country, laws, and companies."

—Paul Hawken, coauthor of Natural Capitalism and author of The Ecology of Commerce

From The Thom Hartmann Reader:

"Thom Hartmann seeks out interesting subjects from such disparate outposts of curiosity that you have to wonder whether or not he uncovered them or they selected him."

—Leonardo DiCaprio, actor, producer, and environmental activist

From The Thom Hartmann Reader:

"Thom Hartmann is a creative thinker and committed small-d democrat. He has dealt with a wide range of topics throughout his life, and this book provides an excellent cross section. The Thom Hartmann Reader will make people both angry and motivated to act."